Please welcome first-time contributor BaJa, a 42-year-old history teacher in a public secondary school. BaJa has recently been diagnosed with anxiety and depression after struggling with low self-esteem for over 25 years. She is afraid that she is going to lose the few people in her life now that she has officially been diagnosed. BaJa is scared to open up to even the people closest to her. She has reached a point in her life when she wants to open up, but doesn’t know how. That is why she sought out help, in the hope she can learn to open up and calm the storm that roars constantly in her head.
About this photo: “This picture was taken by a friend: she wanted to photograph me at a party we were attending. I didn’t want the picture to be taken, so I put my hands in front of the camera: I already felt really uncomfortable at the party without my picture being taken. Seeing pictures of myself makes me feel anxious, because I can only see the things that I don’t like about myself, even when people point out good things they see. It shows my inability to like myself and see good things in myself in any way. The picture shows also how I still try to keep my thoughts and fears to myself and don’t share them with the people close to me by literally blocking them out. It makes me very sad to look at this picture because it shows how I make my own nightmare happen.”
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